revolutionary war

On the cold, snowy night of March 5, 1770, a mob of American colonists gathers at the Customs House in Boston and begins taunting the British soldiers guarding the building in protest of unpopular taxation.

The protesters pelted British troops with snowballs until Private Hugh Montgomery was hit, causing him to discharge his rifle into the crowd. The other soldiers began firing as well, until five colonists lay dead or dying.

Crispus Attucks, Patrick Carr, Samuel Gray, Samuel Maverick, and James Caldwell died from their wounds, and their deaths are regarded by some historians as the first casualties of the American Revolutionary War.